// Tampa Bay Rays

Thank the baseball gods that there are now less than four games left in this abomination of a Red Sox season. All are against teams officially eliminated from the MLB postseason – the rubber game against the Tampa Bay Rays, then three against Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees – meaning the Red Sox can’t even play […]

Hours after the Oakland Athletics traded for Jon Lester, the Detroit Tigers countered by pulling off a three-team blockbuster that puts the last three AL Cy Young award winners in the same rotation. The Tigers are now set for October with a loaded rotation of Max Scherzer, David Price, Justin Verlander, and Aníbal Sánchez.

In the now ritualized skirmishes between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays, Rays starting pitcher David Price plunked David Ortiz in the first inning in a pretty blatant retaliation for last postseason, then hit Mike Carp three innings later. Red Sox starter Brandon Workman responded in kind by throwing behind the head of Evan Longoria […]

Last year the Boston Red Sox went to Allen Webster for spot starts and left Rubby De La Rosa primarily to junk time relief situations. Clearly organizational thinking has changed. De La Rosa will start tonight against the hated Tampa Bay Rays for the oft-injured Clay Buchholz, in a game the Sox must desperately want to […]

After the brawl between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays last Sunday at Tropicana Field, some carryover shenanigans between the AL East rivals would have gotten lower odds than California Chrome to win the Belmont Stakes. Still, one would think two professional baseball teams could avoid having tempers escalate as quickly as an […]

First baseman and Massachusetts native Alex Hassan will join the Boston Red Sox after Ryan Lavarnway was placed on the disabled list with a sore left wrist. Hassan is one of the only viable options to fulfill first base duties with Mike Napoli also on the DL. Lavarnway had just arrived in Boston for the […]

The Red Sox had tied the game 3-3 in the top of the seventh inning, but after another meltdown in the inning’s bottom half, they found themselves down 8-3. Yunel Escobar was on second base with two outs, and crossed the line of unwritten rules by stealing third base with a five-run lead (Escobar was […]

Ah, the perks of being a professional athlete! No, I’m not talking about the fame, or the fortune, or the ability to turn both into an annual vacation to Churchill Downs as a guest of some famous horse breeder/owner. Whether it’s NBA players walking into the arena (Exhibit A: Westbrook, Russell), baseball players being hazed […]

After a long hard winter that never ended, Opening Day is finally here. Do not let the 38 degree temperatures fool you outside, baseball is back. The AL East is sure to be one of the most exciting divisions in all of baseball with four teams (sorry Blue Jays) with a chance to compete for […]

Our position by position ranking of the AL East is coming to a close and this installment focuses on the pitching staffs of the AL East. As the old adage goes, pitching wins championships, so which AL East team has the edge?

The season is just a day away and there are a few rankings left to discuss. After covering outfielders, this post focuses on the DHs and benches on all the teams in the AL East. While it may seem strange to put the DH and bench together, there are few teams outside of the Red […]

These past couple weeks we have analyzing and ranking the AL East position by position. In most posts, including last week’s which focused on third base, our rankings have been fairly similar. This week however, the shortstop rankings are wide open with no two lists looking the same. Who got it right or is the […]

In our third installment of ranking the AL East it seems only natural to look at third base. If you missed last week’s post of second base you can check it out here. Spring training has officially started so baseball is ever closer and what better way to get in the mood than ranking some […]

Continuing our position by position ranking of the AL East, today’s focus is second base. If you missed last week’s make sure to check it out here. These rankings are a way to ramp up for the baseball season and to incite your own thoughts on the rankings. At the end of the piece feel […]

It feels like the Red Sox just won the World Series and there is a long offseason ahead of us, but things have snuck up on us pretty quickly and Spring Training is now 12 days away. With baseball so close, three writers at Sports of Boston, Scott Siegler, Brian Roach, and myself, have felt […]